Time Strategies - How I'll stay ahead

Albert's Thoughts:

Out of the two essays I read - my favorite one Why Time Management is Ruining Our Lives by Oliver Burkeman portrays the perspective that the constant pursuit of business in our 21st century "efficient" lives seem to have decreased the 'quality' of our lives by mixing leisure and busy time. The essay was very stark and reminded me of a book I read this Christmas break, Sapien: A Brief History of Human Kind by Yuval Harari who states that humans are not anymore happy than we were millenias ago. The emphasis on productivity today I agree seems to have mixed in with our schema of what it means to live a whole and maximized life. It is also through that essay that I appreciate why I am doing this blog from the perspective of Patrick as this gives me a chance to step outside of myself - into a perspective where I can emulate something that is so static all the time. Overall it was a great read into time management!
Link : https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/22/why-time-management-is-ruining-our-lives

The other essay I read was Time Management Tips Just For The Creatives by Amanda Oliver was quite fascinating. There were already some things that I already do such as allocating my energy to more energy draining projects first and making sure I am most productive at my productive point during the day. One thing that did stand out to me though that I started but never quite continued was the idea of ENDING my day with a checklist of things to do for tomorrow. The idea is quite entertaining as I have started my day of with a checklist once for about a month and just stopped. I think that ending my day with a checklist would be a great idea to do as it will allow me to rest easily with the comfort that i know exactly what I am doing the next day. I plan to implement this today before I wind down for the night. Also Togl and IFTTT are apps I am looking into now.

Link: https://www.canva.com/learn/time-management/

- Albert 

Speaking of different ways to manage time - here is an old photo of patrick lying on his side in his bed. There really isn't a correlation specifically to time but I just wanted to highlight the concept of how not efficient his making use of the bed is. 

photo taken from my phone

Technology - more thoughts by... Patrick!

Currently I am having Albert view the blogs as I am still missing in action in real life - I believe I'm in Ohio right now for a photo shoot - but I am very excited nonetheless. I am familiar with most of the technology such as Google Docs, Tumblr, and Pinterest, but I may look into using Cheezburger for creating memes about myself and this experience. Anyways, here is a photo of me 'planking' on the gas valves in my Chemistry back in high school!

                                           This photo was taken from my phone

Assignments - patrick's thoughts

After browsing through the list of potential project ideas and extra credits, the ideas that most intrigue me are the "famous last words" and "extra reading" assignments. The personal reflections diary would be neat as I spend most of my day modeling for random photo projects or just simply existing. It's really quite interesting, to think about it this way, but sometimes people spend a lot of their days pondering or moving about. It is at moments like those where I really enjoy the static nature of my existence with the knowing that I know and came from my creator - Albert.

 More on this later ~~

                                  This image was created by my friend Brad and emailed to me

Growth Mindset - a reflection

Since creation, I have only garnered attention from the shadows of my accomplishments. I often feel lost and mistaken as how other people perceive me, not as how I view myself. This reflection is about my growth mindset.

The adventure started two years ago when Albert first took me out for the summers. Being a wooden sea star, I've always thought that my place was in the oceanic world with others of my kind. A place that is cool and dark with lots of bivalves to prey upon. It was not until the summer time where I really learned that what makes me different is what makes me special. For the past six years I have always pushed against the buoyancy of nature. I am aiming deep just to get shot right out of my environment. I never gave any excuse as to my condition or matter, but its pure law that when I am made to float I should only face resistance when I dive.

Thus resistance I did face both below and above the comfort of my beliefs. These past summers have truly been life changing. I traveled around in arid environments reaching sweeping temperatures with sometimes nothing but the wet of the humidity to keep me moist. Sometimes I don't know where my next meal will come from or even the results at the end. Regardless, I know that things will always work out. I realized that wherever I am, whether it is up above the horizon or into the watery depths, there will always be discomfort at whatever stage I am in. I choose to keep going and that is why I keep growing.

Photo was taken from my camera

Introduction - Patrick...a story of creation.

My name is Albert. I am a letters-constitutional studies major here at OU and I am pre-med. During the summer time I sell books door-to-door in another state and I take pictures of funny things. I want to be a doctor/surgeon and one day co-found a business with my peers. I also eventually want to be married to a lovely wife and have 5 kids (3 boys, 2 girls, all spawned by me and my wife), 3 dogs (a pomeranian, a maltese, and an auzziedoodle), and a miniature pony, all by the time I'm 42. Anyways, that's enough about me.... Here is who and what the blog is really about...... *drum roll* PATRICK!!

The purpose of the blog is to reflect and meditate on Indian Epics through the perspective of Patrick Startrick, a wooden figurine I created in 10th grade. All reflections will be through the eyes of Patrick in the first person, with all mentions of me in the third person. Patrick was born my sophomore year in high school on accident. A friend of mine and I were designing a sculpture out of two pieces of wood. Both pieces failed, but from the rubble arose possibility. My friend ended up throwing his piece of wood away, but I saw potential with my half. At first the block looked potentially like a long sword. I shaved the piece and sanded it down into what later resembled a magnet shaped device. The final product was a wooden figurine that resembled Patrick Star from the popular show on Nickelodean, Spongebob Squarepants. I decided to paint the figurine a shade of pink and had another friend draw a face on him. Ever since then, like a child born from wedlock, our accident morphed into life of its own - thus spawned Project Patrick.                                     
                                                       

All photos were uploaded from my Phone

Project Patrick started off with just a few friends and I as we sought areas in our class schedule to bring "life" to Patrick. The concept of "life" was a very interesting topic to me as I was taking IB classes at the time - the idea of life both biologically and figuratively really drew my attention. I started taking pictures of Patrick both inside and outside of school in my daily activities as I pondered this question of life. A few examples of the integration is shown below.

                                                      Here this is Patrick Skyping with one of my friends

                                                  Patrick with a baby photo

                                          Here Patrick is part of my Science Fair project

                                          A rad picture of Patrick in my physics class with the Tesla Coil

                                        Patrick at a Mexican Restaurant (Featuring my sister in the background)

                                      Here Patrick is being sported by one of my friends as a pocket square
                                              Also all these photos were taken from my phone

The project is quite amusing and as I grew older and my friends all started utilizing social media, there were eventually a few social media projects that were started as well such as his presence on instagram.
                                           
                                                     All pictures were taken from my phone

Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed this blog as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Patrick's Story Book Favorites (ideas for this blog)

For this post, the assignment is for Albert to find some of his favorite blog projects from other students. The idea for this theme project will be a combination of a meditation and news Hindu dating fantasy through my lens (Patrick). 

The first project Albert really appreciated was from who made his website as a fantasy ideal dating Hindu gods match making. The idea is original and funny and opens up room for possibility. The introduction and the first picture does a great job of explaining what the project is about and the navigation is simple use-friendly. I knew exactly which gods to read about. 

Link: http://hinduloveronline.tumblr.com/story1

Image: Indian Couple by Thanwan Singh, Flickr provided by Hinduloveronline

The second website Albert really appreciates is Barney's blog which gained inspiration from the show How I Met Your Mother. The blog had an amazing introduction allowing for clear understanding that this will be the thoughts and insight provided from none other than Barney himself. Personally, both Albert and I have never watched more than 10 minutes of the show, but Barney's blog definitely sparks interest in the show. The navigation is not as clear cut or distinctive, but is still pretty neat as it gives a funny account of his experiences in India.

Link: https://sites.google.com/site/barneysepicofindiablog/findings

Lastly, the third website that garnered much appreciation from Albert was labeled the Shreemati News which spins an idea of being a news blog for married women in India. The website seems pretty cool and could potentially spark some type of mystery news blog from both Albert and I. The navigation is pretty clear and the "Breaking News" section of the blog intrigues me.

Link: https://indiaepicsnewspaper.weebly.com/

Patrick in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina... My Favorite Place

One of my favorite memories this summer was this summer time when Albert took me along with him during his adventure in North Carolina with Southwestern Advantage. Albert ran his own business as a professional educational consultant in Sneads Ferry, North Carolina. Sneads Ferry is a tiny shrimping community with lots of culture and the community was absolutely amazing and welcoming. It was on June 10th at around 5:40pm that he took me out and positioned me for some cool photos on the horizon of the pier. The second photo is of me on the hood of his car next to the seafood restaurant Blackbeard.

Both of these photos were taken personally from my iphone SE